“The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a larger sense than common use permits out of what wisdom and valor and generosity we have.” -- Henry David Thoreau

About Me

Editor for publishing company by day; skald in the Hall of Fire by night; and member of the S.H.I.E.L.D.W.A.L.L.
Essayist and reviewer for numerous web and print-based fantasy publications, including The Cimmerian, Black Gate, Mythprint, REH: Two-Gun Raconteur, The Dark Man, and SFFaudio.com.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

A brief tribute to the stories of Ray Bradbury

I came to Ray Bradbury at what is likely a later age than most. I never had to
read Fahrenheit 451 in school; if I read one of his short
stories as a student I have no recollection. Several years ago, in a desire to
start filling in some gaps I had in classic genre fiction, I gave
Fahrenheit 451 a try. It was a powerful read and made a
profound impact on me. It prompted me to seek out more Bradbury—and I’ve been
hooked ever since.

Since then I’ve marveled in the wonders of Dandelion Wine, The Golden
Apples of the Sun, The October Country, The Halloween Tree, Something Wicked
This Way Comes, and The Martian Chronicles. If somehow
you haven’t read any Bradbury yet my advice is to pick any of the above titles
and dive in. I’d recommend one over the others, but there’s no need: They’re all
pretty much brilliant. You won’t be disappointed.

I’ve always been a little leery of science fiction and have read far more
deeply of fantasy. Rightly or wrongly, my perception is that SF worships at the
altar of technology, and is fixated upon cold, clinical subject matter for which
I have little interest. But if the genre contained more books like The
Martian Chronicles, I might view it a lot differently (a parenthetical
aside: Though it may be the subject of a catchy song, to call Bradbury “the
greatest sci-fi writer in history” isn’t accurate. Dark fantasy, horror, soft
sci-fi, traditional literary fiction—Bradbury has written in them all, and
sometimes all at once. He is in many ways genre-defying). Bradbury’s stories are
in tune with our humanity and his fiction is life affirming. They remind us that
We’re human, and we’re alive, damn it. Bradbury often said that he
loved life and was driven to write not only by his love of libraries and of
reading, but of the very act of living itself. And that’s potent fuel for a
lifetime of stories.

"Wonder had gone away, and he had forgotten that all life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value the one above the other."